And that requires ending the regime that insists on having one
By Stephen D. Cook, Real Clear Wire
Iran Must Never Have a Nuclear Weapon—and That Requires Ending the Regime That Wants One
For months the Commander-in-Chief has repeated a clear, absolute endstate: Iran will never—never—possess a nuclear weapon. That objective is not a talking point. It is the only outcome consistent with American security, Israeli survival, and the prevention of nuclear-armed theocratic blackmail of the global energy system, even as alternative pipelines begin to offer partial redundancy. Yet as the war that began on 28 February 2026 grinds into its fifth month—with the United States intensifying air and naval strike campaigns, reimposing the blockade, and the Iranian regime lashing out against regional targets and striking additional cargo vessels in the Strait—too many voices in Washington and the commentariat have lost sight of what ‘never’ actually requires.
A functional decomposition of the endstate is straightforward. Iran’s nuclear program is not a technical problem that can be solved by bombing centrifuges or stockpiles. It is a political-military program driven by a regime whose founding ideology, constitution, and operational doctrine treat the acquisition of nuclear weapons as a means to destroy Israel and, ultimately, confront the United States. The will, the intent, and the institutional machinery that produce that pursuit reside in the Supreme Leader’s office, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and the network of clerics and commanders who have spent four decades pursuing the bomb while denying it. As long as that leadership remains, the program can be reconstituted. History has proven this repeatedly.
Consider the record. After the 1979 Revolution the nuclear program was largely frozen and further damaged during the Iran-Iraq War. Yet by the late 1990s Iran had launched the secret Amad Plan and, by late 2003, had advanced warhead design, high-explosive testing, detonator work, and missile integration, lacking only fissile material. In roughly two decades, under sanctions and isolation, the regime went from near-zero capability to the threshold of a nuclear weapon. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action later placed temporary limits on enrichment and installed monitoring, yet by 2019 Tehran was already exceeding those limits and by 2025 had stockpiled hundreds of kilograms of 60-percent enriched uranium. This is enough, if further enriched, for multiple weapons. The June 2025 U.S.-Israeli strikes and the far larger February 2026 campaign (Operation Epic Fury) severely damaged Natanz, Fordow, and related sites. Intelligence assessments still cannot confirm the complete elimination of the material or the know-how. The regime’s scientific cadre, its archival blueprints, and its procurement networks survived. With residual scientists, data, and institutional knowledge intact, Iran can drastically shrink the timeline to another nuclear weapon in the near future despite recent setbacks. “Degrade and delay” is not “never.”